


dark places

by bunnieju



Series: atropos [5]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Doyoung and Yuta are kinda space police, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fake Science, I Tried, M/M, Minor Character Death, Outer Space, Referenced violence, basically a villain origin story, fake deep, fake world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23833732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnieju/pseuds/bunnieju
Summary: "Your chest starts to crush, oh, but it's alright,Oh, you'll be alrightSo just breathe, it's almost over,"orDoyoung and Yuta have been stuck in these dark places for too long. Together maybe they can take that last reach towards a lighter place.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Nakamoto Yuta
Series: atropos [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692334
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	dark places

**Author's Note:**

> for nana! sorry it took me so long!
> 
> soundtrack:  
> lost//found by eden  
> a world alone by lorde  
> what a catch, donnie by fall out boy  
> wiped out! by the neighborhood  
> falling in reverse by eden  
> leaving by illenium

The gentle humming of the ship was usually white noise in Doyoung’s ears, but it had become a symphony when joined with the chill of the ventilation system, the muted glow of artificial lights, the soothing voice of the projected hologram from the device on his wrist, the melancholy that violently shook at his body, and the hiccups that escaped his mouth in the aftermath of his sobbing.

“Things aren’t that great over here, but they’re getting better. Your brother just got a job as a minor actor in a new drama from Callisto, so he’s leaving next week. It might be really hard for all of us cause you know Callisto is far from here; at least three days of airglow travel.”

The shoebox-sized room was colder and darker than it had ever been. It had no personality to it, as that was against the official guidelines — just four metallic-like grey walls, a black ceiling with adjustable lights, a twin bed with dark blue sheets, a matching comforter, and white pillows, and dresser that contained only uniforms and few casual clothes.

Doyoung sat in the floor space by the side of his bed, knees pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around his knees to allow for his communicator to project the holographic message from his mother. Tears and snot soaked the cloth of his casual long-sleeved shirt, his hair was in complete disarray, and his eyes hurt in their bloodshot red color.

The hologram of his mother paused, taking a second to just stare and allow for a sad smile to creep onto her face. "When are you coming home, Doyoung?"

His mother's smile wobbled before completely dropping into a frown, the hologram quality giving away the hint of a glassy glow to her eyes, but she did not cry.

"You don't have to sacrifice your life for a few bucks from intergalactic leeches; we would be fine with you here, even if not in the best financial situation."

Doyoung felt like a hand had reached into his chest and began pulling and squeezing at his internal organs. He felt like there was a hole in his chest and he was slowly bleeding out. He felt like there was an entity peeling at his skin, trying to reveal the person the Doyoung once was — hopeful, determined, and bright — but it was only causing him to become an even more disfigured version of that person. 

"Doyoung, please come home. We miss you a lot and hope to see you soon. Reply to this as soon as you can! I love you." His mother blew him a kiss before the hologram glitched and cut off with a robotic voice asking if he'd like to replay it.

Doyoung just lowered his head, laying it on his arms as the weight of existence weighed down on his shoulders. Doyoung was tired. He was so, so tired. He'd never gotten to go home; he'd never even gotten to reply to her message before a cadet came running into his shared office to break the news.

A military mission had gone south, ending in the obliteration of Vulcan and its citizens via Saros Explosives — a chemical so unstable and violent that manufacturing or mining was illegal and prosecutable by death or exile. There were no survivors and the planet had ceased to exist aside from pieces of rubble floating through the Lyra Cluster.

Doyoung could feel grief rattle at his heavy bones once again, but he found himself empty of tears, so he just sat there for what seemed like hours, shaking and lightly hiccuping.

Eventually, he could hear a low beeping at his room door before the door softly hissed open to reveal a figure in the blinding light of the outside. Doyoung stilled as best he could with his shaking body, staring at the silhouette contrasting against the overly bright light of the hall. 

“I want to be alone.” He muttered.

“Too bad.” Yuta grinned, stepping forward into the room. The quiet hissing of the door sliding shut behind him brought the familiar darkness back into the room but Yuta had no trouble adjusting and crouching down to sit on the cold floor next to Doyoung.

Yuta’s body still donned an officer uniform: a flexible black pair of pants held by a white belt, a skin-tight long-sleeved black shirt, and a white accented black vest with the Andromeda Alliance's intergalactic trade officer logo. His belt, however, was absent of their usual Andromeda Alliance mandated weapons aside from the stun gun all officers had on at all times, meaning that he’d finally gotten off shift and this wasn't just a break.

Sitting shoulder to shoulder, Yuta softly sighed, causing a noticeable shift in his usual playful aura. "How are you feeling, Doie?"

"Peachy." Doyoung simply mumbled.

"Stupid question, I guess."

A silence fell over them before either of them could stop it. However, a few moments later, Yuta sprung into action, pulling the comforter and pillows off of Doyoung's bed before tossing a small disc on it and arranging a place for them to lie down on the cramped floor space of the room. Yuta forcibly pushed Doyoung into a laying position on a pillow, before swiping at his communicator a few times and laying right beside Doyoung.

A moment after, the black ceiling of Doyoung's dark room became a familiar scene. Multitudes of stars, droplets of elements, clusters of planets, fragments of life; the darkness of the room contrasted with yellows, reds, whites to recreate the sparkling pool that was their mesmerizing universe. Every single soul that would come to exist had been carefully woven into every detail of this divine creation and its ominous endlessness — a safety net to millions of dreams, but a graveyard to trillions.

“The universe is beautiful, isn’t it?” Yuta’s voice broke through the brittle silence that had settled in Doyoung’s chest.

“It’s beautiful until you get bored of it.” Doyoung snorts, unconsciously wrapping his hand around Yuta’s wrist. “I’ve been out here for five years, it’s nothing special.”

“But it is!” Yuta exclaimed, before swiping a few times at his communicator again. The projection zooms into a purple-blue planet in the leftmost lower corner of the Lyra cluster. “This is Eparo, a subaquatic unexplored planet with 12 moons and a ton of asteroid rubble in its orbit. It’s believed to be inhabited by a special species of underwater humanoids, but with the planet’s clustered orbit it’s difficult to safely enter and exit the planet to confirm anything.”

Doyoung hummed in acknowledgment. “You’d think that with our technology, they’d find a way to do an orbital clean up and colonize it.”

“Yeah, I heard rumors around that the highest officials in Andromeda Alliance know details of the planet and actually have a deal with the civilization there to ensure their safety. But maybe it’s just bored officer gossip.”

A sudden electricity ran through Doyoung’s veins as mixtures of blue and purple danced in his glistening eyes. A thought pushing toward the front of his mind, a dream clawing out from the void in his chest, a want gripping at his body, an idea on the tip of his tongue, but he’d never have to say anything, not when Yuta understood him so well.

“We should try to travel there someday, it’d be an amazing adventure,” Yuta spoke confidently.

“Someday.” 

Doyoung knew it wouldn’t be possible, but couldn’t help but fuel the adventure seeker within himself. They both had too many responsibilities to not only the Andromeda Alliance, but the universe, it’s citizens, and most of all, themselves. Silence befell them once more, but this time lighter as Yuta flickered through interesting uninhabitable or unexplorable planets in the Andromeda Alliance database.

“Do you think there’s such a thing as a perfect place?”

Doyoung hadn’t meant to open his mouth, but it had been itching at him for a while, especially in this vulnerable state of his.

There are different kinds of silence. The silence of peaceful understanding, the silence of violent apathy, the silence of gentle love, the silence of noisy resentment, and in its most basic, familiar form: the silence before someone will say something, and the silence before someone will not. Doyoung has never been able to discern one from the other, for they all reside in skies painted black and starless, dark places from which no signal lights would ever escape.

Yuta’s calm breathing joined the symphony in Doyoung’s ears; a silence he could never outrun or outsmart.

“No.” Yuta eventually replied. “When you’re young and stuck on a colony, you always think: ‘One day, I’m going to make it off this planet and I’m going to explore the universe! No one can stop me!’ and you seem to think that you’re invincible against the rules of this universe. But then you’re actually off that planet and can barely remember what it felt like when that planet was home, when you had that certain warmth to you, who knew the emptiness could be so cold? This universe would never allow a perfect place.”

Doyoung knew this; the cold emptiness was their home and would be their home until their death, but hearing it come from the mouth of the most lucky-go-happy guy he knew was a different kind of pain. Doyoung curled into himself to try and make himself smaller than he felt, but he’d never succeed just for how small existence made him feel.

“Get out of your head, Doyoung.” Yuta’s voice broke in through the bitter thoughts that had begun to collect. “I know you came to the Alliance to bring your family out of poverty, you should know I came to escape mine. But we both had- no, we both  _ have _ a similar dream. You think that because everything doesn’t perfectly align that we have to give up, but Doyoung, you’ll never find a perfect place, especially in these dark places. But we can try to find a place where you and I are okay. Where you and I are happy for once.”

Doyoung inhaled sharply, but even before his brain could process anything, Yuta pulled him into his embrace and they laid there, still and increasingly warm. A lover of the light, a hopeless kid grown old chasing a dream never in his grasp; in this dark, how dare anyone still chase that fleeting sliver of light? In this darkness, he knew he had no name.

“Where’s my youth, Yuta? I don’t remember what it feels like.” Doyoung’s voice cracked with guilt. How was he supposed to forgive himself for all the time that he’s lost?

“Right here, and it’ll never leave, even if you don’t recognize it.” Yuta sighed, hugging Doyoung tighter. “For what it’s worth, the outcome — it’ll be worth all the while in the darkness.”

“Let’s go find an okay place together, Yuta.”

“Of course, you and I against the universe.”

There was beauty in the most unexpected places. There was warmth even in their emptiness. There were bright lights shining in all those dark places.


End file.
